First coat of 'Paint' job a primer

March 10, 2006|JASON KELLY

INDIANAPOLIS -- Matt Painter resembles his coaching predecessor at Purdue so much he could play the title role in "Gene Keady: The Early Years". It's not just their physical similarities, although watching Painter rant and pant along the sideline Thursday in a dogged 70-58 loss to Michigan State caused some flashbacks. Painter locked his jaw around the game and didn't let go until the final buzzer. Intensity, a la Keady. Just like the old coach instilled it in him, Painter infused a depleted Purdue team with a relentless attitude that became its most enduring, and endearing, trait. A foundation poured for the future of the program. He can build on that. His construction methods even echoed Keady, an original who left behind the closest thing to his coaching clone in Painter. Listen to Painter's description of the rugged Big Ten and Purdue's place in it, complete with a challenge to his returning players between the lines: "You can be a champion or you can be the sixth, seventh team in the league," he said. "Two, three games can make the difference and things can snowball either way." Painter then went on a tangent that might have been lifted straight from Keady, although they didn't keep press conference transcripts back in the day to compare notes. To reach that championship level, Painter said he expected his players to comport themselves accordingly from the weight room to the free-throw line. All of 35 years old, and already he has his guard up against distractions as trivial as trash talking that could affect "kids today," not his words, just his sensibility, inherited from Keady. He concluded with this: "Winning is good enough. At least it is to me." Purdue experienced precious little of that this season, but it's not hard to imagine Painter making the program good enough again. Losing in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament completed his inaugural year with a dismal 9-19 record full of excuses he refused to make. He lost players to injuries and disciplinary action, but not his pride in who he could put on the floor, no matter how overmatched they might have been. No team that lost its final five games and won only three over the last two months ever deserved more credit -- for toughness, for resilience, even for improvement. Consider that Michigan State shoved Purdue around by 25 points a month ago in East Lansing. At Conseco Fieldhouse on Thursday, the Spartans faced a Boilermaker team with teeth bared, wounded but dangerous, that somehow hovered within six points deep into the second half. Michigan State coach Tom Izzo knew where they got the attitude that allowed weakened Purdue to put a little fear into a bigger, stronger, deeper team. It came from Painter, by way of Keady and his longtime assistant and current Illinois coach Bruce Weber. "He is a protege, boy. When you've got Bruce Weber and Gene Keady in your blood ... " Izzo said, trailing off on Painter's professional family tree and snapping back to the present. "I think he did a heck of a job." Purdue didn't have anybody who could shoot, but they could all take a bullet. With the personnel he had left to cobble together, Painter forged a team with a collective heart that never weakened despite losing so much blood. He didn't name captains until January because nobody emerged as leaders during his transitional year as associate head coach under Keady and he wanted the title to mean something. "I didn't see it the year before, I just didn't," Painter said. "I wanted them to earn it." Matt Kiefer and Bryant Dillon did, leading the Boilermakers with the workaday quality that remained the program's defiant trademark even in defeat. That also helped Gary Ware develop into a barreling forward with a soft touch who scored 20 points Thursday in 21 foul-riddled minutes. It wasn't enough for a roster still half-full compared to the rest of the conference, but it was still an impressive Paint job. "I think he was put in a tough situation, losing all those guys early, and that team has continued to improve," Izzo said. "That says it all."